Three for Three
by RockinRobin B
Summary: A little story about how Andy and Sharon might find their path together.


A huge thank you to **Kate04us** , **Dee** and **Dana** for their amazing help, beta and encouragement. You're the best!

Three for Three

Andy Flynn was patiently carving away at the wooden door he had repaired. Not for many, many years had he found time, reason or desire to practice his long-forgotten talent but he was finding himself grateful for the rediscovery. The door was made of grey ash, beautifully stained a light chestnut. While not a usual choice for interior doors, he could see why she had chosen it. The wood showed its grain stunningly and now, the softness of it was lending itself willingly to his carving. She had forgotten about this door, which had been hastily removed from her bedroom and replaced with a more conventional, readily available model that sported no dents from a most unfortunate and traumatic event.

As Andy detailed the lone eye in his carving he recalled the manner in which he came to be repairing this door….

Some months before, through an unusual chain of events, he had the good luck to be in the right place at the right time. The first being logistically, Andy was in the best position to assist Sharon with getting Rusty home after his having to leave his car overnight for repair to a broken window. Sharon was unable to get away on time in order to get Rusty before the shop closed. Andy, having overheard the conversation knew the window place. It happened to be near his dry cleaners which happened to have a suit ready for pick up. Naturally, Andy volunteered to take the drive and deliver her son home. Next, Sharon's meeting, which had delayed her picking up her son herself, got canceled exactly 20 minutes after Andy had gone for Rusty. She phoned the men and stated she would pick up something for dinner and meet them at her condo, inviting Andy to stay as thanks for his helping out with Rusty that evening. Judging for the time of day, traffic and distance, they all assumed they'd arrive at Sharon's about the same time. However with the next unusual event, Sharon hit very little traffic either on the road or at the restaurant. She arrived home easily 30 minutes sooner than she'd expected. Maybe the guys would be as lucky, she hoped. With the knock on her door which came shortly after that wish, she opened it without hesitation.

Andy and Rusty approached the door to Sharon's condo and as Rusty poised to place his key in the door, both men registered muffled, angry yelling and loud thumping coming from inside. Andy pushed Rusty aside ordering him to remain in the hallway as he unholstered his service weapon from his side, shoved Rusty's key in the lock and threw open the front door. He entered with all the caution his training afforded and moved immediately toward the sounds in the hallway. Fully expecting to confront the face of Phillip Stroh, Andy nearly shot before registering that the face, while equally familiar, was definitely not Stroh. Andy immediately raised the gun upward, toward the ceiling and away from a very belligerent Jack Raydor who had been kicking a closed bedroom door.

" _For fuck's sake, Jack!"_ he exclaimed.

The combination of being interrupted and seeing Andy Flynn and his gun pointed in Jack's face, was apparently enough to startle Jack and put a quick stop to the diatribe. He stopped kicking and yelling and slid down to the floor, dropped his hands to his side and stared in exacerbation at Andy. "Of course. Of course you're here…" was all Jack offered.

In the aftermath, Andy learned that the knock on Sharon's door revealed, not her expected friend and son, but a slightly disheveled and clearly agitated Jack Raydor. Taken aback at the stoic and intense look on his face, Sharon was immediately apprehensive about his being there unannounced and at a time when normally, she would not be home. She approached him carefully with "Jack, are you all right? What's happened?" He moved forward toward the entry and she allowed him in. He said nothing until the door closed behind them. Then he turned to face her and began telling her about his unusual day. His voice was low and controlled and while his expression was still intense, she didn't feel any further apprehension. He's just stressed, she'd thought. He was in court that day and maybe it went badly? He just needs to talk, she'd reasoned with herself. He'll settle down in a few minutes, just needs to be in a familiar space…that's all. She'd listened intently as he spewed forth events that indeed had begun in court in the morning, with the unexpected illness of his client which rendered the trial to be postponed. He continued steadily, now barely pausing for breath telling her how he then entered a local diner for lunch where he ran into some unfriendly LA County Sheriffs who expressed how they did not appreciate his being there at all. Jack's client from that day, she'd known was on trial for killing an LA County Deputy. Jack continued explaining how he told those officers that he was simply doing his job, the same as they were – they could all just remain civil and have their lunch and go their separate ways. But being "cops" he said they could not let it lay. At the next revelation, Jack became even more agitated. His voice rose and his face reddened as he'd approached Sharon saying angrily, "One of them did me the favor of asking after my beautiful _ex-wife_ and congratulating me on her needing to take a much younger lover in order to replace me!"

The sheer absurdity of such a sophomoric jab coupled with the nervousness she was experiencing over Jack's behavior worked together to cause her to laugh out loud. "Oh dear, that would be something, wouldn't it?" she said. But in trying to lighten the mood, she succeeding only in providing Jack an opening to address another issue that had been very much on his mind.

"Yeah" he answered, "but we all know Andy Flynn isn't much younger, don't we?" For added effect, Jack had made air quotes while emphasizing the "much younger" retort.

Throughout the past couple of years Andy and Sharon had found an easy companionship in one another. As such, they'd enjoyed dinners, fundraisers, games and sometimes even Sunday brunches with each other just as any other friends might. However, it being a single man and a single woman, albeit a newly singled woman, the outings were increasingly viewed by others as more than friends and definitely as dates. Sharon was aware of the change in attitudes, but she felt mostly the same when on Andy's arm so she didn't invest a lot of time trying to change the minds of others who didn't know anything about them and who wouldn't listen anyway. People are people and LA was a big town, but not that big. She knew on some conscious level word would eventually get back to Jack and she knew him enough to know he would not let it pass quietly. But she'd also acknowledged to herself that her own attitude toward Andy was changing and this friendship, this relationship, whatever it might be was a part of her now and when the time came she would defend it.

OK…so this is that moment, she realized. Time to enter the ring and see how well we spar today. She was pleased with the explanation she found at the ready. It was simple, true and one she was convinced even Jack could not find fault with. Her voice was low and thoughtful as she offered "No, Andy is not younger. He is a good man and he's become very special to me."

Jack was shocked. Flynn was neither, in Jack's mind, special nor good. He had heard rumors since December and had even spied his ex-wife and her lieutenant out together once but if Sharon divorced Jack for being a less-than-stellar husband, the last person in the world he expected she'd entertain "special" thoughts of was Andrew Flynn. The statement was either true, or she was playing him. He looked hard into her face trying to decide which was the case, only to realize he was enraged by both.

He began to move toward her, searching for the right words to respond, determined to make her understand that either way, she had crossed a line. "You'd tear apart our family to hook up with someone just like me? Are you kidding me with this, Sharon?"

While caught off guard by Jack's vehement reaction to what she felt was a perfectly innocuous statement, she realized something truly awful. Jack Raydor did not love her. And he did not care enough about her to want her to be happy. The hurt and anger of that realization brought forth a very uncharacteristic response in her, she was vulnerable. As he'd approached her, for the first time in her life with Jack Raydor, she was frightened by him.

It hadn't dawned on her that perhaps his ire was not fueled by some newfound hatred of her but rather that he'd stopped for drinks between his lunch and his arrival at her door. And why would she? He'd been doing so well since New Year's and she had not smelled liquor on him. Regardless of the trigger, her extensive police training kicked in and rendered the unexpected vulnerability moot. She'd been immediate in her turning from him and heading for the shelter of her bedroom. He was quick to reach for her but she'd wrestled away from his hasty pull at her arm, his action confirming her flight instinct had been the right one. She'd reached the door and quickly shut and locked it behind her.

"Jack, you're scaring me. You need to stop this!" she'd stated sharply, hoping to jar him out of this foreign mood. He was silent for a moment and she thought perhaps it had worked. But as she'd relaxed momentarily she was met with a loud bang on the door. It was quickly followed by another and another and the last time was clearly a kick at the base. In total shock over the sudden and violent turn of this man she'd known most of her life, she'd only partially heard the verbal assault he was launching along with the physical volley to the offending locked door.

Just as she'd reached for her phone to call for help, she'd heard Andy's loud expletive, followed by welcomed silence. Once Andy had ordered Jack away from the area, into the living room, he called for Rusty to enter the home and directed him to check on Sharon.

That evening had ended with Sharon refusing to press charges. She still really wanted to believe Jack would never physically hurt her. She'd reasoned that her closing the door is what caused the physical outburst; that it was her shutting him out that he couldn't handle. Eventually she allowed that the alcohol had played a role and she acknowledged to herself that she too, had reacted upon a false assumption. Jack did still care about her.

So being the master of the deal, she'd explained to Jack that her not pressing charges was solely dependent upon his mandatory entry to an in-patient alcohol treatment program to which he'd obviously agreed. Andy understood the deal. No one benefitted from Jack's being arrested. Sharon couldn't stand the thought of that office-talk. Jack would still have to enter drug treatment but doing it in jail would additionally ruin his career. Sharon didn't want that. She genuinely wanted the father of her children to be a healthy, viable citizen and sending him to jail would only assure the opposite. So possibly in total disregard for her safety, Jack had gotten yet another chance.

A very cooperative LAPD patrolman had agreed to get Jack to his brother's place for the night. Jack agreed he would contact his law partners first thing and explain he would need to go on medical leave. Then Jack would call Sharon and tell her which treatment facility he would be attending. It was all very civil, Andy thought for such an uncivilized incident. But it was not his business, not really. So he opted to help pick up after Jack. He'd offered for Sharon and Rusty to come stay the night in his house. A change of scenery would do her good, he thought. She'd of course, refused. She would not be scared out of her own home, she'd said. Still, he couldn't help notice a shaken, haunting look that fell across her face when she looked back at the bedroom door for the first time since Jack had been removed. Wanting to never see that look on her face again, Andy was compelled to replace that door right then and there. However, the lateness of the hour and lack of an appropriate vehicle assured he'd not be able to get another door that evening. He did get her to agree to let him get a replacement and hang it for her. She'd seemed to appreciate that gesture which told Andy maybe she did understand the severity of Jack's latest fall from the wagon.

Andy had never been so grateful to have been in the right place at the right time. "Someone was watching out for us that day" he remembered thinking.

Two days after the intrusion, Julio and Andy had found a replacement door, hung it and removed the sad reminder of one really bad night from Sharon's view. The dented custom ash door being still too pretty to toss, ended up in Andy's garage.

One evening, he brushed up against the abandoned reminder while hanging up a paint roller. On that evening he noticed not the dents that now invaded lower parts of the door, but rather the pattern of the wood grain. As he looked it over, he recalled that look he saw hit Sharon's face, only for an instant but definitely there. All he wanted in that moment, and now again in this one, was to rewrite that bit of history for her somehow. He took a step back and as he studied the chestnut stained wood, he envisioned the slightest outline of a wing in its grain.

In the weeks since, Andy's vision had presented itself fully in his carving into the wood of the door. What emerged to him was the profile of a magnificent angel. The most prominent feature, taking up about two thirds of the door, was her feathered wing. The dents that had adorned the lower part of the door were not much deeper than his etching which allowed them to blend seamlessly into the feathers being honed around them. Long locks of hair flowed flawlessly into the large carved feathers of the wing in the top quarter of the area, and finally, just the partial profile of a face neared the edge of the frame. That feature resulted in Andy's favorite effect. It was a single eye looking back over her wing. He had reversed the hinges and patched and placed another handle so that the angel would now be on the interior side of the room it sheltered. In his heart, he knew it was his hope that this angel would be watching over the woman sleeping behind this door.

What he didn't realize, even at the cliché of his subject matter, was the fact that all this time he'd spent designing, shaping and carving the wood had brought him a new peace that, for the weeks in which he worked on it, replaced his immediate need to attend AA meetings. He didn't realize he had a different craving these days. He didn't realize that all the care and detail he put into this work had just happened. He had not planned it out, he had not analyzed it, he didn't work on any schedule. He just found, from time to time, that he liked spending several hours working with the door, enjoying the chance to create something beautiful out of something that had last been anything but. Had he begun to analyze it he may have found it all a perfect metaphor for his relationship with Sharon.

Only now, with his work nearing the end of its completion, a little more detail around the angel's eye and then some restaining, his thoughts turned from remembering how this had started, to how he might introduce her to it.

While he'd never before questioned the act nor the subject of the carving, he suddenly began wondering about her reaction. Would it seem too forward of him to have kept her door? Would she think the work clumsy, and unfit for the furnishings she had so carefully chosen for her home? Would she still see the scars from that ugly night rather than the something beautiful he created for her? In the end, he put off those ministrations because upon full examination of his work, he knew two things. He knew his friend, and he knew the door was beautiful. Sharon would see the gesture for what it was, she would understand his desire to have done this for her and she would love it. Love. There was that word, he thought. It had been bouncing around in his head a lot these days.

The carving had not been the only respite from the AA meetings. Andy had been, for the past few years, slowly remodeling the house he was living in. He and Nicole had taken advantage of the poor market some years before and decided to try their hand at flipping a house. They thought it might be a good way to get to know each other again while maybe making a buck or two. They'd invested in this one shortly before Nicole met the man who would become her husband the following year. Between their jobs, and Nicole's dating and subsequent life change, the old house had taken a back seat to their lives. Andy moved into the house when it became apparent the remodeling was going to take a while longer. Longer meant more investment. To save rent, it made sense for him to take up residence in the place.

It was a great neighborhood, a decent size home for a small family and it really didn't need all that much work. Once Nicole's wedding was past, Andy had more incentive than ever to restock his wallet and get this house done. The market was ripening and he could, even after several years of paying into it, still make a decent profit.

Although working on the place with Nicole had whittled down to just the occasional weekend here or there, she was instrumental and adept at dealing with the contractor's they'd found to help with the really big stuff. An unexpected bonus came when his son, following Nicole's wedding, had begun to slowly gain interest in getting to know his father again. Noah had helped out on weekends and over the past summer. He showed his father's knack for woodworking and general carpentry skills and proved to be a really good help. The relationship was still tentative, but Noah was warming up and Andy was not so apprehensive about taking a misstep here or there with him. While great progress had been made with both the relationships and the house, the work was not quite finished. It didn't need a lot more, but Andy found that he kept customizing here and there. Touches that were definitely more personal than wise for a house flipping adventure. These had once again slowed the progress, but no one had seemed to mind.

Everyone who visited or even came to help out all commented on what a great place it was. Sharon even joked the previous year that she might have to buy the place when he was done. He had thought she was probably just being gracious. She'd made a good show of it though, commenting on the beautiful wood features he'd installed on his own, and the addition of two bay windows that had not existed before. She loved the idea Andy had presented to remove a full wall and make it only a half, to open up the area between the living room and kitchen. And when she'd returned months later to see that progress, she had commented that she should be told first when he and Nicole were ready to sell. She seemed genuine but now as he prepared for the upcoming weekend of sod placement, he wondered again what she'd want with a house and a yard. The condo life seemed to suit her just fine.

It seemed silly to place sod now, he knew, with the interior of the house still needing work, but Nicole had stumbled onto a good deal for some and he was actually quite bored with all the dirt. He had offered BBQ and beer for anyone who would volunteer to help out and surprisingly, everyone on the whole squad signed on. Even Provenza.

As the weekend drew near, Andy abandoned the final touches needed on Sharon's door, covered it up with its protective sheet and began preparing his special BBQ sauce recipe. He'd gone overboard with chip variety but wanted to please everyone. Provenza had actually volunteered to supply the beer in exchange for his not having to lay sod. So brisket, popsicles and ice were the remaining purchases to be made this evening. Upon his stocking of those items in the freezer in the garage, he set off to get some much welcomed sleep. Just as he reached for the light, his mind recalled the last time Sharon had visited the house two months ago.

She had asked to come by and see his latest progress, a stained glass skylight he'd had installed above the kitchen. The glass had a vague pattern of a waterlily in a pond and had pinks and yellows which allowed for the light, but soft blues and purples that rounded out the kaleidoscope of hues that graced the kitchen in the light. At first he didn't think she liked it because, unlike every other detail in the house she'd come to admire in the past, this time she simply stared at it. She said nothing, had no immediate reaction…..crickets…. He was just about to make up some excuse for why he should remove it when she finally stirred. She tilted her head to the side but looked straight at him and declared "Andy…. This is _stunning_." The beautiful grin that accompanied the statement served like an AED to start his heart beating again. She admired it further and then toured the rest of the house surveying all the latest.

Later, as she started to leave she turned to Andy, looked him right in the eye and declared quite simply "Andy, you _are_ going to sell me this house" and as with the times before, Andy just smiled, happy that she appreciated his work but said nothing in response. In return to his silence on the matter she had tossed him a look he'd never seen on her before. He was so surprised and intrigued, he could think of nothing besides its meaning. Only after she'd driven away did he realize he'd not even stopped pondering long enough to muster a "goodnight".

On this night, as he drifted off to sleep various questions invaded his mind as he reexamined that last visit. What the hell was that look about? Did I really not even say goodnight? Why will I not sell her this house? As it turned out, that last question was an even more intriguing question to him than that look on her face had been. It, in fact, caused him to stay awake for several hours pondering it because he came to realize he genuinely did not want Sharon to buy this house.

Nicole was the first to show up on Saturday to help prepare for their assistants. She had been remiss in visiting the house regularly these days. Not only had she not seen the skylight, she didn't even know it was an idea. Andy was once again taken aback by her reaction upon seeing it for the first time. Like Sharon, she was speechless. Again? He worried silently. But unlike Sharon, no beaming smile or declaration of beauty followed from Nicole.

"You don't like it?" Andy finally mustered.

Staring at it still, she stammered "It's… it's really….it's…." then she turned away to face Andy squarely and said, "Dad, why are you continuing to invest in customizing this house?! I thought you were really serious about wanting to finish and get it on the market. I just … I don't understand." She continued on, "I mean Dad, bay windows? Custom pine wood sills for the windows and floorboards? Wiring and speakers throughout the house? The glass tiles in the kitchen? Who does that?!"

He was so caught off guard at her exasperation all he could respond was "So, you don't like it."

"Of course I like it, Dad. I love it, but it's so unnecessary. And so contrary to flipping a house… _for profit._ Plus, you've not even started on the master bedroom!"

"Uh…actually," he started "I have sort of decided the shower could use some updating…"

"Oh My God…." She sat on the bar chair on the newly resurfaced kitchen island, placed her head in her hands and sighed. Then she looked at her father again and said quietly, "Seriously, Dad what is going on?" She pushed out the other bar chair and motioned for him to sit. She needed to know what was happening here.

"Well…I guess… I just didn't really think about it. I started with the wood to give the place a little something extra. It didn't really cost much since I could do the work myself. And then it looked so nice, I just sort of continued. The windows were a suggestion from the guy _you_ found to do the remodel. He said that the ladies love to sit in the window seat and read. And his cost wasn't really all that much more than just redoing the existing windows." Nicole was intrigued, but was not letting him off the hook, she kept staring at him, silently demanding he continue this tap dance.

So he continued. "The speakers, well you know? Who doesn't like music? Sharon always has music playing in her house. She says it's very relaxing, and Tao did all the wiring for me so really, that was not all that expensive."

"And the skylight?"

"Well…OK that may have been my one extravagance."

Nicole was exasperated. "The _ONE_?" She laughed out loud. "Dad, you? Stained glass? What, you had some epiphany in church?"

"Well…no, not exactly church. OK look, one evening I had taken Sharon to dinner at the Q-Bar. You know that really nice place on Olympic? And they have that amazing stained glass dome? Well I really liked the way the light came in and…." While he continued on with a perfectly logical explanation, it was simultaneously dawning on him what he remembered liking the most about that dome was how the light hit Sharon's face. The yellows highlighted her auburn hair, the rose color fell across her beautiful pale skin and her eyes became greener and her lips more pink than he'd ever recalled before. It was in that very moment Andy Flynn had fallen in love with Sharon Raydor. And it was in this moment now, in front of his daughter while espousing the virtues of his not-quite-so-minor home customizations that he finally realized that fact, and many others that explained his personal touches related to the house.

He also realized that at some point he'd stopped talking, and was staring, dumbfounded back at Nicole.

"Yes?" She asked, unaware of why her Dad stopped in mid-sentence moments before, but fully aware of this new edition of the "Sharon effect".

"And…well, I guess what's done is done." He managed. He truly had no regrets, and he truly didn't care about the investments. He liked the house, he liked working on it, he liked being in it and he liked what he knew he could still do with it. And now, he knew why.

His explanation was done but was also interrupted by the arrival of Provenza and the beer and soon everyone else began arriving. By 11:30 the yard had been dug, raked and leveled in time for the sod delivery. While the sod guys unloaded the rolls, everyone else stepped inside for drinks and the smorgasbord of chips and Andy's amazing brisket which he was busily serving up.

Sharon offered to prepare soft drinks for Andy and Rusty and Andy pointed her to the garage to retrieve the ice from the freezer out there.

In her absence the talk around the kitchen turned from the banter of who wasn't doing as much work in the yard as whom, to the skylight, which was now in full glory in the mid-day sun. As the group praised its overall look, inevitably Noah began to quip about the abundance of custom features their Dad had tossed in, "So far". Those who had not seen the whole house began to wander through, appreciating the touches and the beautiful wood work but also becoming curious about Noah's detailing each of the customized features on a flip house.

In the garage, Sharon had removed one bag of ice from the freezer but decided on a second to restock the refrigerator inside. As she set the first one on the ground she felt something fall lightly around her head. It was a sheet that had apparently come down when she set the bag of ice on its corner on the ground.

She moved to free herself of the cover and when done, her eyes happened upon the large yet subtle carved angel whose one eye met instantly with Sharon's . Sharon stared for a moment, trying to orient herself to what she was seeing. She stood speechless but felt quickly as though she needed to see every single feature of the canvas in front of her. Every detail of every feather and every strand of hair, she felt drawn to. Her hand followed her feasting eyes and began to move gingerly over many of the various grooves. Mesmerized by the details and the particularly stunning effects of the stained wood against the newly etched lighter indentions, she found herself lost in its artistry. While the image invoked many feelings in her, she did not feel the coolness of the freezer air on her back nor feel the man who had shown up just behind her.

He watched her silently examining the carving. There was no apprehension in him over her having found it like this, unfinished and unceremoniously. He had been completely at peace following his earlier defense of the house and the revelation that it provoked in him. Love he thought again. Now he understood exactly why that word kept popping up.

"I hope you like it," Andy said humbly. "I made it for you."

Unstartled, she turned to him slowly and asked "Andy, you carved this?"

"Well, uh... yeah"

"For me?"

"Yes", he responded

"Why?"

"Well, it was actually yours, I just….enhanced it."

"Mine?" she questioned as she returned her gaze to the gift.

"It's your door. I wanted to fix it."

There was another long silence as Andy stood facing her back. When she finally turned again to face him, he noticed unshed tears welling in her eyes. He believed in that moment that she did understand the gesture and that he'd wanted to fix more than the door for her. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and stepped toward her wanting to capture those tears if they decided to fall. As he dabbed her cheek, Sharon reached out and wrapped her arms around Andy's waist and pulled him into a warm embrace.

"Thank you" she whispered as she continued to hold him to her.

The moment was soon interrupted by the entrance of Rusty and Buzz who had gone in search of ice. While a little surprised at the scene they'd happened upon, Rusty's focus quickly went to his mother and her obvious misty eyes.

"Sharon, is everything OK?"

"Oh yes, of course!" she lilted as she pulled out of the embrace. "I was just admiring this remarkable work" and she motioned to the carving. Buzz and Rusty couldn't help but be derailed by the angel. As they both began admiring it and moving toward it, Sharon took the handkerchief from Andy's hand, looked up at him and smiled. She then silently escaped the scene and returned to the kitchen. Andy followed soon with the ice and Buzz and Rusty just behind him. It didn't occur to either of the young men to mention the scene nor even the door to the others. Somehow they both felt they'd witnessed a very private happening and neither was too keen to betray it.

The rest of the day went about like the morning had for everyone. Following lunch, they all pitched in to unroll and seam the sod pieces while simultaneously taking routine jabs at Provenza for his "supervisory" role, at Julio for his previously unknown green thumb tips, at Amy for a minor PDA shared with Cooper during lunch, at Sharon for her many suggestions on how the sod placement could become more efficient, and at Rusty for not having young friends who could have replaced them all with this hard labor. The only thing that had fallen off the menu of fair game seemed to be the house customizations. The others had simply appreciated them and Nicole, following the explanation her father had provided earlier had realized that no matter the reasons, improving the house had also served to improve her family and for that, she was grateful.

By 7PM everyone had gone a second round with the BBQ and chips. The beer was gone and the crew was tired. They all began making their exits. Sharon had started with cleaning up, but Andy forbade anyone from doing one more thing. He insisted they had done more than enough that day and Nicole agreed saying she would return Sunday and help with the cleanup. With that ultimatum, Sharon rounded up Rusty and they headed out together with the others. Andy walked them out and hoped to have a chance alone with Sharon to say goodnight but with everyone going at once, and his sincere thanking of each of them, he was unable to do more than give her a customary friendly hug as she reached her car. He didn't know what he wanted to say or even do, but he felt they'd shared an important moment in the garage that day and it just didn't seem right that they would not address it somehow. But it was all for not, as he watched Sharon exit the driveway with a simple wave good bye.

He returned to the house and decided he would at least put the trash outside. But before he even had time to close up the bag, he heard a knock at the door. Wondering who forgot what, he approached the door and found Sharon standing before him.

"Hey. I thought you and Rusty left? Is everything OK?"

"I sent Rusty with Buzz and no, Andy….everything is not OK." Her voice was low and Andy thought her expression looked rather hurt. He panicked for a moment. To break the tension and his worry he reached for her to bring her into the house. She passed him and made her way to the kitchen where she turned to face him.

"I want to know why you won't sell me this house?"

A simple question he thought, but the answer was so much bigger than she ever could imagine. But Andy's panic left just as quickly as it had arrived because for this question, he had an answer. It may not be one she was ready for, but she had asked and he would not lie. He loved this woman, and he needed her to understand that. She didn't have to accept it, but he was ready for her to know it.

So he began "Well… I started to rebuild this house and it was all going along fine. But one day, after the very first time you entered it, I just wanted you to stay. Little by little I found myself adding extra touches but I never stopped to wonder why. I guess it didn't matter, as long as I was building, there was the hope that you would come again and one day, maybe if I built it just right, you'd want to stay." He paused. Her face was intent, but she did not seem shaken as he'd expected. In fact, she seemed so lost in thought Andy now worried she had not been listening.

Needing to bring her back to this very important moment, he finished "Sharon, I want you in this house. I want you in my bed …one day, and I want you in my life every day."

Not being the only one in the room who had come to a big revelation that day, Sharon was hearing Andy's explanation. Like him, she was calm in hearing his confession because earlier in the day, in the garage when he explained that the door was hers, she realized she had fallen in love with this man. She didn't know an exact moment, and actually felt that maybe she'd loved him from the very first time she saw him, a hundred years ago… but seeing that carving, and understanding all that it encompassed, she knew without any doubt she loved him. She'd realized then that she'd wanted this house because he had built it. It held his touches and she couldn't bear the thought of anyone else being in it.

Like the sheet that had fallen across her face earlier, serenity settled into her features. She took a step toward him, took his hand in hers and smiled.

"Andy, I am in your house. I am in your life. So if you would care to make it three for three, maybe you better show me what you have in mind for our bedroom."


End file.
